Nutrition Frenzy

Great Q&A from Diet and Fitness Expert Dr. Melina Jampolis, Physician Nutrition Specialist:

My 10-year-old daughter struggles with her weight. We have been told by our family doctor that she is “off the charts” on weight. She is currently 4 feet 6 and weighs 105 pounds. We walk 2-3 miles several times per week; I also try and provide healthy meals, etc. We have had her thyroid checked; her blood-work all came back normal. I am curious on how many calories she should have daily to try and guide us on how much she should be eating. Any useful tips would be greatly appreciated.

Expert answer:
Hi Julie — With almost one in three children today overweight or obese, you are not alone in your struggle and in your concern for your daughter. Childhood obesity is an important predictor of adult obesity and has been associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and psychosocial issues. While I strongly believe that public policy changes are critical to combat this growing epidemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics has released an extensive set of guidelines that may help you.

Your goal for your daughter at this age should be geared more towards weight maintenance rather than weight loss, allowing her to grow into her weight as she ages and her height increases. If she does lose weight, the AAP suggests that weight loss for children aged 2-11 be no more than 1 pound per month and older children should lose no more than 2 pounds per week. It is critical that adopting a healthy lifestyle become a family affair, as it appears you are doing by promoting regular walking and healthy meals. Avoid overly restrictive behavior or making your daughter feel punished or deprived from the things that the rest of the family enjoys. Here are a few more tips from the AAP guidelines along with a few of my suggestions for implementation.
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Could it be true? Is there really an all-natural, low-calorie sweetener — with no aftertaste — that doesn’t send your blood sugar into the stratosphere? Fans say agave (ah-GAH-vay) nectar fits that description. And to judge by the flood of agave-sweetened foods and drinks on supermarket shelves — hundreds have been introduced in the last 2 years — the new sweet stuff has a lot of believers. It’s even showing up in cocktails at trendy bars. So, is it true? Or too good to be?

T or F: Agave is super sweet.
True indeed! It’s four times sweeter than white sugar. Just 1/4 teaspoon of agave nectar/syrup approximates the sweetness of 1 teaspoon of sugar, costing you just 4 calories instead of 16.

T or F: Agave is all natural.
True, sort of. But “all natural” doesn’t mean “not processed.” Agave comes from the desert-dwelling succulent Agave tequilana, which is also the source of tequila. However, turning the plant’s juicy sap into a syrupy nectar you can drizzle on yogurt or stir into tea takes some doing. Some manufacturers heat the sap; others use enzymes to convert it into table-ready syrup.

T or F: Agave has no flavor.
True and false. It depends on whether the syrup is light or dark. The lightest types are virtually flavorless, but darker varieties have a maple- or caramel-like taste that you may take to . . . or not.

T or F: Agave has a low glycemic index (GI).
True. Because agave nectar is mostly fructose, it makes a pit stop for processing in the liver, which lowers its glycemic index (GI) — a measurement of how quickly a food makes blood sugar rise. Table sugar is about half glucose, which goes straight to the bloodstream and sends blood sugar zooming in minutes.

T or F: Agave is a healthy sweetener.
More false than true. The major health benefit is that you may use less agave than sugar to get the same sweetness. But that’s about where the health-buck stops. People who’ve heard all the bad press about high-fructose corn syrup — and avoid it like the plague — need to realize that agave nectar is a high-fructose syrup (at least 75% fructose). Many health experts believe high-fructose foods are not good for you. “Perhaps most worrisome is that excessive fructose may increase the risk of metabolic syndrome and diabetes,” says Richard Johnson, MD, author of The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That is Making You Fat and Sick (2008). It also triggers a combination of unhealthy effects that can eventually lead to a host of troubles, including heart disease and stroke, according to Johnson and others.

Bottom line: If you’ve got a serious sweet tooth, a little agave syrup now and then may help you control calories and blood sugar spikes. But that’s as far as it goes — and the trade-offs aren’t great. Sorry about that.

Some previous studies have found that low carbohydrate diets like Atkins work better than a traditional low-fat diet. But the new research found that the key to losing weight boiled down to a basic rule — calories in, calories out.

“The hidden secret is it doesn’t matter if you focus on low-fat or low-carb,” said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the research.

Limiting the calories you consume and burning off more calories with exercise is key, she said.

The study, which appears in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, was led by Harvard School of Public Health and Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana.

Slashing calories
Researchers randomly assigned 811 overweight adults to one of four diets, each of which contained different levels of fat, protein and carbohydrates.

Though the diets were twists on commercial plans, the study did not directly compare popular diets. The four diets contained healthy fats, were high in whole grains, fruits and vegetables and were low in cholesterol.

Nearly two-thirds of the participants were women. Each dieter was encouraged to slash 750 calories a day from their diet, exercise 90 minutes a week, keep an online food diary and meet regularly with diet counselors to chart their progress.

There was no winner among the different diets; reduction in weight and waist size were similar in all groups.

People lost 13 pounds on average at six months, but all groups saw their weight creep back up after a year. At two years, the average weight loss was about 9 pounds while waistlines shrank an average of 2 inches. Only 15 percent of dieters achieved a weight-loss reduction of 10 percent or more of their starting weight.

Dieters who got regular counseling saw better results. Those who attended most meetings shed more pounds than those who did not — 22 pounds compared with the average 9 pound loss.

Theresa Tamkins of Health magazine has this tip:

Vitamin D may protect people — especially those with asthma and other chronic lung conditions — from colds and other respiratory tract infections, according to the largest study to date to look at the link.

Unlike other vitamins, a deficiency of vitamin D (which is known as the sunshine vitamin because sun exposure triggers production in the body) is quite common in the United States — particularly in winter.

At least 50 percent of people in the new study, which included nearly 19,000 people 12 and older, had levels that suggested less-than-optimal protection against respiratory tract infections, according to the report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“People think that if they have a good, balanced diet that they will get enough vitamin D, and that’s actually not true,” said Dr. Michal Melamed, an assistant professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “Unless you eat a lot of fish and drink a lot of milk, you can’t get enough vitamin D from diet.”

In the study, Dr. Adit Ginde of the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and colleagues at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston found that people who had low blood levels of vitamin D were more likely to report having had a recent cold than those with higher amounts. What’s more, the risk of a recent cold or other respiratory infection seemed to rise as vitamin D levels dropped.

Overall, 24 percent of people with the lowest levels (under 10 ng/ml) had had a recent cold, compared with 20 percent of those with slightly higher levels (10 to 29 ng/ml) and 17 percent of those with the highest levels (30 ng/ml or more). Health.com: Top 7 natural cold remedies

The link was even stronger in people with asthma, who had about six-fold greater risk of colds with low vitamin D, and in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, who had a two- to three-fold greater risk.

An overweight teenager who once ate 15,000 calories a day has lost 280 pounds after undergoing weight-loss surgery.

This is amazing! Malissa Jones, of Selby in North Yorks, England, tipped the scales at 476 pounds at the age of 16 and was constantly gorging on chocolate, chips and other junk food, sometimes eating 10 candy bars in one sitting.

She was so hooked on eating she would raid the freezer in the middle of the night and gobble down partially-thawed raw burgers.

In the end Jones was barely able to move. She needed oxygen so she could breathe while sleeping and suffered angina — a heart disease usually associated with older people.

Doctors told her to lose weight or she would die. At 17, she decided to have gastric bypass surgery. The operation helped Jones lose more than half her body weight in just one year.

Now she is saving to have an operation to remove 14 pounds of excess sagging skin caused by her dramatic weight loss.

“I’ve discovered a whole new world,” the teen said. “I’m out every weekend clubbing. I’ve had a lot more boyfriends because I feel much more attractive and confident.”

So at 17 she decided to have the bypass . . . even though it could have killed her. The risky op is normally banned on under-18s. She said last night: “Doctors warned me there was a strong risk I could die from the op. But I knew I had no choice. Without it I would have died anyway.”

Miraculously Malissa, of Selby, North Yorks, not only survived but lost more than half her weight in a year.

Now she is saving to have a private op—a full body lift and tuck—to remove one stone of excess sagging skin caused by her dramatic weight loss.

Great news for soup lovers!

The first Campbell soup is getting a low-sodium makeover.

The Campbell Soup Co. announced Wednesday that its tomato soup — the one painted by Andy Warhol — will have its sodium cut by 32 percent by August.

The new level will have 480 milligrams of sodium per serving — low enough to qualify for the government’s definition of low-sodium.

The company is using low-sodium sea salt to modify a product that hasn’t changed much since it was introduced in 1897. Sea salt is used more and more by food manufacturers to introduce low-sodium foods to the public.

Over the past three years, Camden-based Campbell has used the sea salt in dozens of its offerings.

Denise Morrison, the president of the Company’s North American soup, sauces and beverage operations, says that by fall half the company’s soups will be low-sodium.

Campbells Tomato soup is the go-to soup for a quick lunch, dinner, or addition to recipes. Great news that they are reducing sodium in their soups, and that their classic Tomato is the first to get the makeover. There have been more and more food products that include Sea salt and it is a nice change from the bombardment that your taste buds endure with the regular foods that are difficult to stomach.

Hopefully, this new wave of Campbells foods will encourage other food manufacturers to produce more low-sodium foods when they see how popular Campbells Tomato Soup has become. There is one kitchen that will be stocked with this new low-sodium soup.

“Free foods” are those that help you get more bang for your buck because they contain a lot of water, fiber, and flavor, which fill you up without a lot of calories. This idea, which is not new, was the premise behind Volumetrics, a book published in 2000 by Barbara Rolls, Ph.D., and Robert A. Barnett. Rolls is a researcher at Penn State University whose doctorate is in nutrition.

Roll’s theory of volumetrics is a classic because it’s geared toward allowing people to eat more food (particularly fresh fruits and vegetables, which are usually 80 percent to 95 percent water), while at the same time keeping the calories down and hunger pangs at bay. Rolls, who backed up her theories with promising research done back in 1998 and 2000, suggests eating a higher proportion of fiber-rich foods along with adequate portions of lean protein (think skinless chicken breasts, low-fat cheeses, and low-fat veggie burgers) and healthy fats from fish and other sources.

Here’s how to incorporate the volumetrics concept into your meals:

Choose very low-density (aka, low-calorie) foods

Load up on fresh fruits and vegetables. Try shopping at your local farmer’s market for the freshest, most delicious fruits and vegetables at a reasonable cost.
Limit starchy vegetables like corn, peas, and butternut squash since they’re higher in calories (although they do pack a great nutritional punch).
Drink nonfat or 1-percent milk only.
In your cooking, use clear soups or broths, without added fats.
Consume lean proteins: low-fat cheeses and vegetable protein, skinless chicken breast, broiled or grilled fish (no skin), 93-percent lean (or leaner) ground turkey or meat.
Limit high-density (aka, higher-calorie) foods

High-fat chips. Even the baked varieties are high in calories and do little to satisfy hunger.
Cookies. You know it: high in both fat and sugar.
Chocolate. Dark chocolate has antioxidants and therefore some health benefits, but try to limit yourself to a few small squares per sitting, especially if you’re working on weight loss.
Nuts. Again, these have health benefits but also a lot of calories per ounce, so use them sparingly.
Butter. Lite butters are better choices, but watch the amounts you use of those too.
Oils. Even though olive oil is very heart-healthy, like all other oils it packs about 120 calories per tablespoon, so again use sparingly.

I’ve long been a big fan of spices in cooking instead of salt. But there comes a time when even the consummate cook has old spices in store. When to weed them out? The Seattle Times comes to the rescue.

For spices, the government’s guideline for freshness dating is four years for whole spices and two years for ground spices. But two years is a long time for a finely ground spice to stay fresh. A good rule of thumb is to buy no more than a one-year supply of herbs or ground spices and a two-year supply of whole spices.

Keep in mind that each spice contains hundreds of flavor components. It is the quantity and balance of these components that determine the quality of the spice. The flavor components will dissipate at different rates. When in doubt about a spice, smell it. If it smells strong and spicy, use it. If the aroma has faded away, toss it. Old spices never go bad, they just fade away. Spices must be stored properly to maintain a strong, fresh flavor. Heat, light, moisture and air all speed the loss of flavor and color. Store accordingly.

In addition, flour will be good for nine months if stored in an airtight container and kept from heat; sugar for up to two years. Sauces and other condiments, once opened, will keep for six months if properly refrigerated.

Since I use spices alot in my cooking, I doubt I have any that are older than six months.

Which is better for your teeth — orange juice or tea?

Turns out that OJ ranks right up there with soda in terms of its enamel-damaging potential. But tea’s effect on teeth is like water’s: It leaves enamel unscathed.

Guard Your Teeth
Think of enamel as armor for your teeth. Once that armor gets worn down or damaged, it can’t repair itself. That’s why acidic beverages — soda, citrus juice, sports drinks — are so bad for your pearly whites: They contain enamel-stripping acids (phosphoric, citric, malic, and tartaric acids, to name a few). But green and black teas don’t attack enamel, and they even have a bit of tooth-friendly fluoride to boot.

Drinks That Do No Wrong
Save wear and tear on your teeth with these other smart sipping strategies:

Use a straw with acidic beverages. This minimizes contact with your teeth. Or swish your mouth with water afterward.

Drink brewed tea — and drink it straight up. If you load it up with sugar and lemon, your teeth will feel it.

Snack on natural stain removers, like apples, celery, and carrots.

You might want to skip the milk, too. Here’s why:
Women in a study who drank black tea had improved cardiovascular function — but that protection vanished if they drank it with milk. Temper the taste of your black tea with lemons instead. Or sip it as the Chinese traditionally do: straight up.

Researchers are not sure why milk may blunt tea’s heart-healthy effects, but milk proteins called caseins are possible culprits.

Bottoms up.

Experts: Different people probably won’t react the same to any given nutrient

Being deficient in a nutrient such as vitamin D has harmful effects

But it’s not clear that excess vitamins will help the immune system

The immune system evolved about 250,000 years ago

We know that certain foods are bad for people with particular conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes. Advising a generally healthy person on foods that will prevent future disease, on the other hand, is far more complicated, and represents one of the challenges for scientists working in food science.

In the future, people should be able to tailor their diets and supplements to their particular biochemistry, said experts presenting at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science this week.

Right now the food industry is centered on products, said J. Bruce German, professor and food chemist at the University of California, Davis. That means profits depend on lowering the cost of production and making things cheaper.

“No one’s getting healthy in this model,” he said. “It’s clear we have to move toward a consumer-driven food supply.”

In a consumer-driven food world, the industry would focus its goals on improving all aspects of the consumer’s health, he said. People would receive dietary recommendations based on a very specific individualized health assessment, taking into account age, sex and medical history, he said.

The bottom line is that being deficient in a nutrient such as vitamin D has harmful effects, but once you achieve a certain level, it’s not clear that excess vitamins will help the immune system, Gershwin said.

Another direction that food science is taking is genomics. Researchers are looking at the genes of edible organisms to figure out what about them makes them beneficial to humans, knowledge that may enhance diets in the future.

For instance, scientists are looking into how human milk evolved. Curiously, one component of breast milk is something that infants cannot digest: oligosaccharides. Research in the last few years has shown that these oligosaccharides stimulate particular bacteria in the intestine, which is a beneficial process.

As a diabetic and weight loss novice, I’ve learned I had to give up my starches. No, not talking about starch in my clothes, but my food.

Which foods have a lot of starch?
Grains (wheat, rice, barley, oats), potatoes, corn, and beans are all very starchy foods. Grains are made into bread, cereal and pasta, as well as crackers, biscuits, cookies, cakes, pie crust, and anything else made with flour.

That wasn’t as hard as I thought, giving up those foods. All I did was replace then with healthier versions. There are low-carb/starch breads out there. If you’re craving mashed potatoes? Try mashed cauliflour! It has a similar appearance and you can put any topping on it (low-fat, of course).

Surprises: One processed food that seems to be digested more slowly than would be guessed is pasta. Apparently the starch molecules are so tightly packed that only about half is rapidly digested when the pasta is cooked “al dente” (slightly firm). Cooking time and thickness of the pasta greatly affects how the glycemic it is.

Additionally, when some cooked starches, such as potatoes and rice, are cooked and cooled, a small percentage of the starch takes longer to digest.

I could not give up my pasta! I’ve found a low-carb pasta, and it’s readily availabe in most grocery stores. You just have to do a little investigating.

What Starches Should We Eat?
The best starchy foods are whole beans or lentils. The starch is mostly either slowly-digested starch or resistant starch.
When choosing grains, eat ones which are whole and intact when cooked, such as brown rice, barley, amaranth, or quinoa.
Avoid most baked goods or anything made with flour. Best choices are specially-made low carb breads which have less starch and more fiber.
Avoid processed cereals with little fiber. Best choices are cold cereals, such as All-Bran with Extra Fiber, are which are mostly fiber.

9 resistance-boosting foods and ingredients to help you win the cold war

Yogurt

Probiotics, or the “live active cultures” found in yogurt, are healthy bacteria that keep the gut and intestinal tract free of disease-causing germs. Although they’re available in supplement form, a study from the University of Vienna in Austria found that a daily 7-ounce dose of yogurt was just as effective in boosting immunity as popping pills.

Sweet potatoes

You may not think of skin as part of your immune system. But this crucial organ, covering an impressive 16 square feet, serves as a first-line fortress against bacteria, viruses, and other undesirables. To stay strong and healthy, your skin needs vitamin A. “Vitamin A plays a major role in the production of connective tissue, a key component of skin,” explains Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in Derby, Conn.

Tea

Take frequent tea breaks this winter, and you may just get through it without a sniffle. Immunologists at Harvard University discovered that people who drank five cups of black tea a day for 2 weeks transformed their immune system T cells into “Hulk cells” that pumped out 10 times more cold and flu virus-fighting interferon — proteins that defend against infection — than did the immune systems of those who didn’t drink black tea. Green tea should work just as well.

Chicken soup

When University of Nebraska researchers tested 13 brands, they found that all but one (chicken-flavored ramen noodles) blocked the migration of inflammatory white cells — an important finding, because cold symptoms are a response to the cells’ accumulation in the bronchial tubes.

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Great post from Real Age:

That bowl of ice cream made you feel better. For about 2 minutes. Now you need a nap.

Next time you need a pick-me-up, reach for one of these three foods instead. Research shows they offer real mood-boosting benefits — without inducing a food coma.

1. Fortified cereal
Yep, another reason to eat your Wheaties. A bowl of fortified cereal is a great way to get a boatload of energy-boosting B vitamins, which work to curb tension, moodiness, irritability, and depression. (Or get a whole string of Bs — B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, folate, biotin — by taking a B-complex supplement or a multivitamin.

2. Something made with saffron
Small-scale studies have found that saffron — the trademark spice in many yellow-hued Indian, Moroccan, and Asian dishes — can ease symptoms of depression with virtually no risk of side effects. Although it’s a somewhat pricey spice, a little bit goes a long way, as you’ll see in these flavorful dishes from EatingWell:
Spicy Yogurt Chicken
Scallops in Saffron-Tarragon Broth
Winter Squash Risotto

3. Fish dishes
Research shows that people with lower blood levels of EPA and
DHA — two fatty acids found in several kinds of fish — are more likely to show symptoms of mild to moderate depression. So snack on some tuna salad or finish off the salmon from last night’s dinner.

One of my favorite Nontraditional Comfort Foods is a great big bowl of my homemade Ratatouille with some shredded cheddar cheese. Ratatouille features that cancer-fighting vegetable, Eggplant! it also has zucchini, peppers (green, red, yellow, orange), tomatoes, yellow squash, mushrooms and for spices, bay leaf, basil, oregano! It’s warm, comforting, tasty and good for you, on so many levels.

From CNN Health: Is decaffeinated green tea as healthy as regular green tea? Are plums as healthy as prunes? Are fresh cranberries as healthy as dried cranberries? The “buzz” in the media is that green tea, prunes and cranberries are all extremely healthy foods. But, what if the caffeinated green tea keeps you up all night and you’re not a fan of dried fruits?

This is an excellent question and brings up an important point. While it seems like every week there is a new “must eat” food or drink, there are lots of nutrient rich foods that can be incorporated into a healthy diet based on your food and drink preferences. In addition, getting a variety of healthy foods is even more important than consuming the latest products generating media “buzz.”

In general, I’m not a big fan of dried fruit either as dried fruit is much more calorically dense than fresh fruit because of its significantly lower water content. And with the obesity epidemic in this country, keeping calories under control is just as important as choosing healthier foods. Fresh fruit is just as healthy as dried fruit and you don’t have to worry about added sugar, fat or portion sizes, which must be more closely controlled when it comes to dried fruit. And if you don’t like cranberries, my colleague, Wendy Bazilian, who has a doctorate in Public Health and Nutrition, is a registered dietitian, and author of “The SuperFoods Rx Diet,” is quick to point out that for urinary tract health, blueberries may work just as well as cranberries. For heart health, all deeply colored berries, cherries and even grapes are rich in disease fighting phytonutrients and antioxidants.

When it comes to green tea, which is an excellent source of disease-fighting phytonutrients known as catechins, the decaffeinating process may reduce some, but not all of the health benefits. However, the negative health impact of sleep deprivation far outweighs the health benefits of green tea so I would certainly recommend sticking to decaffeinated green tea if caffeine impacts your sleep.

Citrus fruits contain nutrients that are essential for men’s reproductive health

Strawberries contain folic acid, which helps ward off birth defects in women

A drink or two can help you relax and help lower your inhibitions

If you want to put some sizzle back into your sex life, food can help you set the mood this Valentine’s Day. There’s nothing better than a romantic, home-cooked dinner, featuring some R-rated foods to help turn up the heat.

And if you’re sporting a little extra pudge, incorporating these in-the-mood-foods into a healthy, plant-based diet is one of the best ways to help you get back to your sexy self.

Almonds

Topping my of feisty foods, almonds have long been purported to increase passion, act as a sexual stimulant, and aid with fertility. Like asparagus (another one of my favorite sexy foods), almonds are nutrient-dense and rich in several trace minerals that are important for sexual health and reproduction, such as zinc, selenium, and vitamin E.

Strawberries

The color red is known to help stoke the fire: A 2008 study found that men find women sexier if they’re wearing red, as opposed to “cool” colors such as blue or green.

Seafood

Despite their slippery and slimy texture, oysters may be the most well-known aphrodisiac. They’re also one of the best sources of libido-boosting zinc.

Figs

These funny-shaped fruits have a long history of being a fertility booster, and they make an excellent aphrodisiac because they are packed with both soluble and insoluble fiber, which is important for heart health

Finally, Alcohol

A drink or two can help you relax and help lower your inhibitions — which can be a good thing if you’re in a safe environment. And alcohol in moderation helps raise HDL cholesterol (the “good” kind) while reducing your chance of blood clots.